Ku-band high efficiency GaAs MMIC power amplifiers

The development of Ku-band high efficiency GaAs MMIC power amplifiers is examined. Three amplifier modules operating over the 13 to 15 GHz frequency range are to be developed. The first MMIC is a 1 W variable power amplifier (VPA) with 35 percent efficiency. On-chip digital gain control is to be provided. The second MMIC is a medium power amplifier (MPA) with an output power goal of 1 W and 40 percent power-added efficiency. The third MMIC is a high power amplifier (HPA) with 4 W output power goal and 40 percent power-added efficiency. An output power of 0.36 W/mm with 49 percent efficiency was obtained on an ion implanted single gate MESFET at 15 GHz. On a dual gate MESFET, an output power of 0.42 W/mm with 27 percent efficiency was obtained. A mask set was designed that includes single stage, two stage, and three stage single gate amplifiers. A single stage 600 micron amplifier produced 0.4 W/mm output power with 40 percent efficiency at 14 GHz. A four stage dual gate amplifier generated 500 mW of output power with 20 dB gain at 17 GHz. A four-bit digital-to-analog converter was designed and fabricated which has an output swing of -3 V to +/- 1 V

Isolation and identification of bacterial strain I33M producing milk-clotting enzyme: Optimization of culture parameters using response surface

A strain I33M which produces a milk-clotting enzyme was screened from Algerian soil near a dairy factory. This strain was identified as Bacillus mojavensis based on morphology and internal transcription spacer sequence. Sequencing analysis of 16S rDNA gene showed 100% identity of the tested strain with the B. mojavensis in the database. Phylogenetic analysis of this strain showed that it was most closely related to Bacillus subtilis strain. The optimum levels of these significant parameters to obtain the highest milk clotting activity and the lowest proteolytic activity were determined employing the response surface methodology (RSM), which revealed these as follows: wheat bran 7%, casein 0.094%, temperature 39°C, agitation size (rpm) 150. Among the various variables screened, agitation and temperature were most significant in submerged fermentation (SmF). The optimal value of milk clotting activity (MCA) is esteemed at 2.40. Key words: Milk clotting protease, Bacillus, response surface methodology, sequencing analysis

Automated Ex Situ Assays of Amyloid Formation on a Microfluidic Platform.

Increasingly prevalent neurodegenerative diseases are associated with the formation of nanoscale amyloid aggregates from normally soluble peptides and proteins. A widely used strategy for following the aggregation process and defining its kinetics involves the use of extrinsic dyes that undergo a spectral shift when bound to β-sheet-rich aggregates. An attractive route to carry out such studies is to perform ex situ assays, where the dye molecules are not present in the reaction mixture, but instead are only introduced into aliquots taken from the reaction at regular time intervals to avoid the possibility that the dye molecules interfere with the aggregation process. However, such ex situ measurements are time-consuming to perform, require large sample volumes, and do not provide for real-time observation of aggregation phenomena. To overcome these limitations, here we have designed and fabricated microfluidic devices that offer continuous and automated real-time ex situ tracking of the protein aggregation process. This device allows us to improve the time resolution of ex situ aggregation assays relative to conventional assays by more than one order of magnitude. The availability of an automated system for tracking the progress of protein aggregation reactions without the presence of marker molecules in the reaction mixtures opens up the possibility of routine noninvasive study of protein aggregation phenomena.Financial support from the Frances and Augustus Newman Foundation, the BBSRC, the EPSRC, the ERC and the Swiss National Science Foundation is gratefully acknowledged.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bpj.2015.11.352

The human papillomavirus type 18 E6 oncoprotein induces Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor 121 (VEGF121) transcription from the promoter through a p53-independent mechanism

Altered angiogenic response is associated with high-grade cervical dysplasia and with invasive squamous carcinoma of the cervix. Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF) is one of the most potent inducers of angiogenesis and is up-regulated in carcinoma of the cervix. Infection by high-risk human papillomavirus and persistent expression of viral oncogene E6 are etiologically linked to the development of cervical cancer. E6 is able to immortalize cells and induce malignant transformation by inactivating p53. In cervical cancer, regulation of VEGF expression is poorly described. Thus, we investigated whether E6 oncoprotein could regulate VEGF expression in HPV18-positive cervical cancer-derived HeLa cells harboring a wild-type p53. The alternative splicing of vegf mRNA renders three major isoforms of 121, 165 and 189 amino-acids in humans. We have designed isoform specific real time QRT-PCR assays to quantitate vegf transcripts and VEGF121 was the predominant isoform. Silencing HPV18 E6 mRNA with specific siRNA reduced VEGF121 expression by at least 50% whereas silencing of p53 did not alter its expression. Treatment with cycloheximide did not inhibit E6-induced VEGF121 expression. Collectively, these results suggest that HPV18 E6 oncoprotein contributes to tumor angiogenesis by inducing VEGF transcription from the promoter in a p53-independent manner

Receptor-mediated endocytosis of the intrinsic factor—cobalamin complex in HT 29, a human colon carcinoma cell line

AbstractA HT 29 cell line derived from human colonic carcinoma was shown to express the intrinsic factor receptor, with about 5000 binding sites per cell and an association constant of 20 × 109 1/mol at pH 7.4 and 4°C. The number of binding sites increased dramatically between 7 and 10 days of culture time. Endocytosis of the intrinsic factor-cobalamin-receptor complex was inhibited by two ways: at 4°C and at 37°C by incubating the cells with vinblastine, monensin and chloroquine. The plasma membrane receptor was cross-linked to [57Co]cobalamin-intrinsic factor and solubilized with Triton X-100. The cross-linked complex had a relative molecular mass of 330 kDa in native PAGE

Activities of extracts from saponin-containing plants on sheep erythrocytes, Tetrahymena pyriformis and Rumen protozoa

As the effects of saponins in the rumen are due to their membrane-disrupting ability on protozoa, the activities of extracts from saponin containing plants were determined on erythrocytes, Tetrahymena pyriformis and rumen protozoa. Inhibition of Tetrahymena pyriformis were found to be correlated (R2=0.54) with 50% hemolysis. The extracts supplemented to a standard feed, showed null to remarkable in vitro activity on rumen protozoa. With -51% and -41% protozoa inhibition, Primula veris and Chenopodium quinoa might have the potential to improve ammonia utilization in ruminants, meaning less excreted nitrogen and less environmental impact

Liver-Targeting of Interferon-Alpha with Tissue-Specific Domain Antibodies

PMCID: PMC3581439This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

An homoplasmic large deletion in mtDNA control region: case report

We report a new case of a large, homoplasmic Control Region deletion in human mitochondrial DNA. A missing 154 bp fragment spanning positions 16154?16307 was found in an apparently healthy blood donor from Salta (NW Argentina) whose maternal lineage was attributable to Native American haplogroup D1. The same mutation, to the best of our knowledge, has been independently reported before only twice, in both homoplasmic and heteroplasmic states.Fil: Motti, Josefina María Brenda. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Celular. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Celular. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Celular; ArgentinaFil: Alfaro, E. L.. Universidad Nacional de Jujuy. Instituto de Biología de la Altura; ArgentinaFil: Dipierri, Jose Edgardo. Universidad Nacional de Jujuy. Instituto de Biología de la Altura; ArgentinaFil: Muzzio, Marina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Celular. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Celular. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Celular; ArgentinaFil: Ramallo, Virginia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Celular. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Celular. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Celular; ArgentinaFil: Santos, María Rita. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Celular. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Celular. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Celular; ArgentinaFil: Irwin, J. A.. Armed Forces Dna Identification Laboratory; Estados UnidosFil: Scheible, M.. Armed Forces Dna Identification Laboratory; Estados UnidosFil: Saunier, J. L.. Armed Forces Dna Identification Laboratory; Estados UnidosFil: Coble, M. B.. Armed Forces Dna Identification Laboratory; Estados UnidosFil: Bailliet, Graciela. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Celular. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Celular. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Celular; ArgentinaFil: Bravi, Claudio Marcelo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Celular. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Celular. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Celular; Argentin

Event-related alpha suppression in response to facial motion

This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.While biological motion refers to both face and body movements, little is known about the visual perception of facial motion. We therefore examined alpha wave suppression as a reduction in power is thought to reflect visual activity, in addition to attentional reorienting and memory processes. Nineteen neurologically healthy adults were tested on their ability to discriminate between successive facial motion captures. These animations exhibited both rigid and non-rigid facial motion, as well as speech expressions. The structural and surface appearance of these facial animations did not differ, thus participants decisions were based solely on differences in facial movements. Upright, orientation-inverted and luminance-inverted facial stimuli were compared. At occipital and parieto-occipital regions, upright facial motion evoked a transient increase in alpha which was then followed by a significant reduction. This finding is discussed in terms of neural efficiency, gating mechanisms and neural synchronization. Moreover, there was no difference in the amount of alpha suppression evoked by each facial stimulus at occipital regions, suggesting early visual processing remains unaffected by manipulation paradigms. However, upright facial motion evoked greater suppression at parieto-occipital sites, and did so in the shortest latency. Increased activity within this region may reflect higher attentional reorienting to natural facial motion but also involvement of areas associated with the visual control of body effectors. © 2014 Girges et al

From Physical to Virtual: Widening the Perspective on Multi-Agent Environments

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23850-0_9Since more than a decade, the environment is seen as a key element when analyzing, developing or deploying Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) applications. Especially, for the development of multi-agent platforms it has become a key concept, similarly to many application in the area of location-based, distributed systems. An emerging, prominent application area for MAS is related to Virtual Environments. The underlying technology has evolved in a way, that these applications have grown out of science fiction novels till research papers and even real applications. Even more, current technologies enable MAS to be key components of such virtual environments. In this paper, we widen the concept of the environment of a MAS to encompass new and mixed physical, virtual, simulated, etc. forms of environments. We analyze currently most interesting application domains based on three dimensions: the way different "realities" are mixed via the environment, the underlying natures of agents, the possible forms and sophistication of interactions. In addition to this characterization, we discuss how this widened concept of possible environments influences the support it can give for developing applications in the respective domains.Carrascosa Casamayor, C.; Klugl, F.; Ricci, A.; Boissier, O. (2015). From Physical to Virtual: Widening the Perspective on Multi-Agent Environments. En Agent Environments for Multi-Agent Systems IV. 4th International Workshop, E4MAS 2014 - 10 Years Later, Paris, France, May 6, 2014. 133-146. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23850-0_9S133146Aggarwal, J.K., Ryoo, M.S.: Human activity analysis: a review. ACM Comput. 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